


that I would be good

by sunshine_in_my_heart



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Gen, Señor Bunny cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshine_in_my_heart/pseuds/sunshine_in_my_heart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his way back to Georgia after his first year at Samwell, Eric Bittle decides to come out to his parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that I would be good

_I'm going to do it._

Eric Bittle was sitting at the top of the steps on the front porch of The Haus, waiting for the shuttle to bring him to Logan airport for his early morning flight to Atlanta. He'd spent the last couple of days moving his stuff from his dorm room to his new room in The Haus and cleaning the kitchen so it wouldn't become sentient over the summer. Jack had left yesterday after a final admonishment for Eric to "eat more protein".

_I'm going to tell my parents I'm gay._

His first year at Samwell had been so good. Better than he'd imagined it could be. He'd gotten over his fear of being checked (mostly). He'd played first line a fair few times, and even scored a game-winning goal.

He'd said he was gay for the first time. 

And rather than making fun of him or shutting him in a utility closet, his team had embraced him. Shitty helped him talk about his sexuality. Ransom and Holster, bless them, were relentless in trying to set him up on dates. (Holster had even installed Grindr to cross-reference potential dates to Winter Screw!) Johnson had given him dibs without any hazing whatsoever (though he did make a typically bizarre Johnson comment about how "the new co-located setting will further develop inter-character relationships and advance the plot"). Even Jack was a little less grumpy towards him lately. 

At Samwell, with his team, he got to be himself—exactly as he was. He didn't want to go back to hiding.

* * *

Mama Bittle was waiting for him at the baggage carousel at the airport in Atlanta, and he gives her a long hug. If he's a bit teary-eyed when he lets go, well, it's been 5 months since he last got a hug from his mother.

Coach has the pickup truck waiting at the curb. Eric gets caught up on the latest church gossip on the hour-long drive back to Madison, and tells his folks all about moving into the Haus.

Eric barely finds a second to drop his bags in his room before being pulled into the kitchen to help Mama with preparations for dinner. It's just the three of them tonight, but she's been saving a new sour cream apple pie recipe to try out together, so Eric gets started on chopping the apples. After months of baking solo in the kitchen at The Haus, he's amazed at how much he missed the rhythm of sharing a kitchen with his mother.

Even his time with Coach is good. When Mama sends him out back with the steaks for the barbecue, Coach hands him a can of Natty Ice ("Here Junior, I reckon you've had a few of these up at college") and asks how their hockey team is shaping up for next year.

 _When should I tell them?_ He just got home, and there's only a few days before he has to go help set up for camp. Things are so good. _I don't want to... ruin? it._

And then he's away at camp for most of the summer.

There's the week off around July 4 that he spends at home with his folks, but there's barely a minute of quiet time around the house the whole week. His cousin Keith and his 4 year-old nephew and 2-year-old niece are in from North Carolina visiting his aunt Connie. Eric's week is filled with food and family—barbecues and fireworks and parties, and he is enlisted for an encore performance of his dancing hockey sock puppet show (featuring Jack the Robot Sock and Mr. Poopy).

He's got just a week home at the end of summer after camp before he and his mom are due to drive back to Samwell. He can't tell them Monday night— _I only just got back from camp_. Tuesday disappears, and Wednesday his folks are out at a church fundraiser picnic the whole day. Pretty soon the week's almost gone.

* * *

Friday morning he decides that this will be the day. After dinner with his folks, he's been invited to a party by Hannah Ellis, who had been the co-captain of his co-ed club hockey team in senior year. Saturday is a family barbecue, and then Sunday morning they're hitting the road right after breakfast.

He can tell his folks Friday after dinner, and then go to the party instead of having to sit around in awkward silence. _Or worse..._

 _Mama's gonna be okay_ , he thinks. _She might cry_. But he'll always be her baby boy... _right?_

_But Coach..._

Coach he's not so sure about.

The videos he's watched online about coming out say that you shouldn't come out to your parents if you think it might go badly and you've got nowhere else to go.

Eric's got Samwell, at least.

After lunch, he goes to the bank to withdraw enough cash for a motel that night and then a Greyhound ticket to Massachusetts. Back at home he packs a duffle bag with a couple of t-shirts, some clean underwear and socks, and some snacks. He puts Señor Bunny on top then zips it closed. Just before dinner, he takes the bag outside and puts it behind a bush at the side of the house. So he's got a few things, just in case...

_In case they..._

_Deep breath._

* * *

Eric doesn't say much during dinner, but mama fills the conversation without much effort.

After dinner his folks are in the family room. Mama's playing Bejewelled on her iPad; Coach is reading the sports section of _The Morgan County Citizen_.

Eric sits down at the top of the two stairs going from the living room to the family room. He's not really in the family room, not really sure if he belongs there. The TV's on in the background, so he can pretend to watch that for a bit.

He stands up and walks to his room at the other end of the house, scared to look himself in the mirror. He passes his baby picture hanging in the hall.

He walks back and sits down again on the stairs.

"What time y'all heading over to Hannah's, Dicky?" his mother asks.

"In a few minutes." Eric pauses. "Could you... I need to talk to y'all 'bout something."

They both look up at him.

"Mama, C-Coach, I..."

_I'm not going to be able to get married at your church._

_You're not going to have any biological grandchildren._

_I can't move back to Madison after college._

"What is it, Dicky?"

_Will you still love me?_

"... Can I borrow the car?"

"Of course Dicky, you can take mine, but no drinking if you drive, 'kay?"

* * *

He holds it together till he gets in the car, and then he's practically hyperventilating. He doesn't let himself cry: he can't go anywhere with red puffy eyes. 

Partying with a bunch of people from high school is the last thing he wants to do right now, so he texts Hannah to say he's not gonna be able to make it. There's nowhere in Madison to get a decent coffee, but there is a Starbucks in Conyers. The half hour drive on the empty interstate calms him down a bit.

Eric finds Shitty online and texts back and forth for an hour, slowly drinking a spiced caramel latte. Shitty's spent most of the summer at his mother's in Cambridge, with an internship at a local legal aid clinic. Eric smiles as Shitty complains about one of his coworker's "bullshit heteronormative expectations, yes I happen to be straight, but it's fucking presumptuous to assume I am and ask if I have a girlfriend."

He's the only customer left when the barista starts closing up at 10pm. His chest tightens up as he thinks about driving home to face his parents. 

_I failed._

He starts crying, hard, sitting alone in the dark in his mother's car in the empty parking lot of a Starbucks in Conyers, Georgia. 

It's a while before he stops.

* * *

The lights are off when he pulls in the driveway. _Thank goodness._ The last thing he wants to do is explain why he's been crying. He picks up the bag he'd left at the side of the house for 'just in case', and unzips it to find Señor Bunny looking up at him. "I couldn't do it," he says lamely.

Eric makes his way through the house as quietly as he can. His parents sleep with their bedroom door open, and he doesn't want to face them tonight.

He brushes his teeth and gets into bed. His heart is still racing, and he knows it will be a while before he falls asleep.

About 10 minutes later, Eric hears his mother's voice through the door, softly calling his name.

He doesn't say anything. His voice would betray him, and she'd know that something was wrong.

The door creaks open and she crosses the room to sit at the edge of his bed. 

Eric breathes slowly, pretending to be asleep.

_Does she know?_

She sits with him for a moment, then kisses his forehead.

_Next year._

Mama Bittle closes the door behind her.

_Next year I'll be brave._

**Author's Note:**

> I really did intend for this to be a happy story where Eric bravely comes out to his parents, but then I got to the sentence where he was going to tell them and he just... didn't. Sorry.
> 
> Title is from the Alanis Morissette song. Bitty would've been only 3 when it came out, but Jack probably has the CD because Alanis is definitive 1990s Canadian angst.


End file.
